González Martínez began writing while practicing medicine in the provinces. With the coming of the Mexican Revolution (1911) he entered public life, serving in the Ministry of Education and holding diplomatic posts in Europe and various Latin American countries. He became famous for his sonnet “Tuércele el cuello al cisne de engañoso plumaje” (“Wring the neck of the swan with the deceiving plumage”), an attack on the excesses of poetic modernism, published in Los senderos ocultos (1911; “The Hidden Ways”). His other poetic works include La palabra del viento (1921; “Word of the Wind”), Poemas truncos (1935; “Short Poems”), and Bajo el signo mortal (1942; “Under the Mortal Sign”).